Author: max.unterthiner@studio.unibo.it

Loccioni Group – Sustainable&Innovative

Last Thursday was a very exiting day for RESD Students: We had the opportunity  to visit the Loccioni Group Company in the Marche region. What we saw there was impressive, they call them self an Open company, that enables to all its stakeholders (customers, suppliers, competitors, the public community, visitors) to enter in the company […]

Is online shopping sustainable?

I personally considered Online shopping to be very sustainable. Saving a trip to the store and getting some serious discount was the highlight for online shoppers. I stopped buying online lately due bad experience with the quality of the product but I always thought that at least it saves you time via e-commerce. But what […]

meet NOOR, the largest concentrating solar power plant on Earth

Two weeks ago, the moroccan King Mohammed VI opened the biggest solar power plant on earth: a 3500 football-field area covered with solar power plants called Noor (arabic for light). With a huge investment of about 3,9 billion dollars the moroccan government build up this huge plant, which is so special because of its moving mirrors, […]

“M’illumino di meno” day

Today an article written by our fellow RESD student Ruggiero Rippo! Enjoy it as much as we do! This year on the 19th of February all of us can make a big difference. On this day the largest broadcasting initiative takes place, to raise awareness about energy consumption and sustainable mobility. The event, called “M’illumino di […]

Exotic Renewable Energy Plants: Tidal Energy

Tidal Energy power plants are definitely some kind of an exotic form for energy production. That’s because most tidal power plants are just pilot projects that are only build for research purposes and do not create a very big amount of energy in their lifetime. Tidal energy is one form of hydropower energy that gets […]

Life transitions can help to instil better environmental behaviours

You are most likely to change your habits if you are changing your city, a job or even a country. Maybe that’s why people say that their life changed once they moved to some other country. Different language, people or food can have a very positive effect on you. At least the researchers of University […]

Is the Earth full?

If you enjoy TED Talks as much as I do then you will certainly enjoy the following speech by Paul Gilding, a famous author (The Great Disruption) and consultant in the field of sustainability and resources. Although this TED is from 2012 it is still accurate today, when he states that human mankind uses Earths […]

Extreme weather is due to Climate Change. Really?!

Every once in a while, I meet someone who doesn’t believe in climate change. They say that all the changes are happening since the beginning of the time and will continue to be so it is quite normal for the Earth to be so warm or to be so cold. Well, I always partially agree […]

Sustainable Transport – step by step reducing impacts caused by transport

It was never easier then now to reach the most remote places on earth, or to get the most exotic fruits from the furthest South American rainforest, and no end is in sight. In fact, transport will be growing strongly in the upcoming decades; with the progressing globalization and cheaper technologies, the transport of persons […]

Soil is a non-renewable resource!

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations FAO declared 2015 the international year of soils, and if you haven’t heard and thought about why healthy soils are necessary for a healthy life I will tell you now. Way too often we forget about soil as a resource that provides food, feed, ecosystem services, […]

Reduction in consumption of meat might be a good idea!

I know that the post image might tempt people to eat some meat right now. But as I have written few posts before about how the meat industry is kind of more responsible for the pollution around the world. Documentaries like ‘Cowspiracy’ and ‘Food Inc’ are worth watching for some reason. Deforestation is done also […]

The wired wild – data is the key

Some weeks ago the World Wildlife Fund WWF organized the fuller symposium event, bringing together leaders in science, policy business and development to talk about innovative technologies and the promises it give when it comes to face the challenges on our planet. Even if you are not a big fan of WWF, you can check […]

What’s in your climate agreement? – Konrad Luders

On December 12th 2015 the governments of 196 nations have finally decided to work together against climate change, a problem known to exist for more than four decades… starting in 2020! But can this be it? Have our governments really just managed to conserve a habitable planet for humans? Or is it too early to […]

Highest number of premature deaths due to air pollution – Italy!

On ‘Corriere della sera’ (one Italian newspaper) few weeks ago, there was an article regarding the highest premature deaths in Italy. If the data is to be believed, more than 59k people died due the high level of air pollutants in Italy. I always mentioned my country to be highly polluted and I always consider […]

Circular Economy: the way forward?

The European Commission published last week some very interesting documents on circular economy: In the Circular Economy Package there are included the goals of the EU Action Plan for the Circular Economy, and the measures on how to reach this goals. The most important targets regarding waste management are a recycling percentage of 65% of […]

The Future of Transportation: The Port of Los Angeles

Right now I am following a very interesting course with the name of transport and regional economics. And the more I think about transportation, the more I realize how important it is to move people and goods from point A to point B. I wont annoy you with all the theoretical models that we use […]

Chasing Ice – Documentary review

Stalking people around the world on Facebook, I stumbled upon a link which talked about some nice documentaries ( I knew stalking was always a great idea). When I opened the linked, one documentary – Chasing Ice was mentioned as one film ‘must be seen’. It seemed like a good idea to see it since […]

Ever heard of: Naomi klein

In this post of ‘Ever heard of’ I am going to talk about Naomi Klein a Canadian author & filmmaker known for her political analyses. Her latest book ‘This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs Climate Change’ became a bestseller. It sheds some light to the connections between the rapid growth model of the free market economy […]

3D-Underwater framing

In resource economics we talk quite a lot of renewable resources and their stock size, and to make it more feasible professors introduce to students this topic by the stock of fish  in the sea and the trees in forest. Today I would like to do the same to you and show you this project, […]

Ever heard of: Carbon Conversations!

This is my second post of ‘Ever heard of’. The first one was based on Sustainable goals by UN. Today I would like to talk about Carbon Conversations. We were suppose to have a small ‘talk’ on it by one professor from Hamburg today but it got cancelled for some reason. I hope the ‘seminar’ […]

Steamgreen Testdrive: Toyota Mirai at Ecomondo

Like Pushkar I went to Ecomondo, and there I had the very special opportunity to test drive the new Toyota Mirai, the first hydrogen powered mass produced car EVER! The reason why I am so hyped about this car is because it is a revolutionary step in the mobility sector: Powered with hydrogen it produces […]

Ecomondo – The Green Technologies EXPO

Couple of days I went to check out this expo which is quite famous in Italy to showcase all the companies which are doing business in Sustainability. This was the fourth edition. I went there last year too but with less enthusiasm and knowledge, I could not enjoy to the best. This year was better. […]

Ever Heard of: Sustainable goals by UN

From this week and till a distant future, I will be talking about ‘Ever heard of’. I’m sure you must have heard about what I am going to write about in this post or in the future, however, my aim is some people who may not know about it, will eventually know through my posts. […]

IRENA – The International Renewable Energy Agency

In today’s lecture about renewable energy production, our professor Chalvatzis Konstantinos showed us some very useful sources for data and information on renewable energy stuff that everybody that is into research about RE should know about. One of those is IRENA – the international Renewable Energy Agency. You do may not know about this agency because […]

My two cents on Milan’s Expo 2015!

I know I should have written this post long time ago. Even though I went to Expo 10 days ago, I should have went there before (less people would have been there) and this review might have helped some people weather to go there or not. But it might help you right now. What do […]

India looking forward to bank on Solar power

In India, Solar power has become the catchword for many states in recent times. Internationally, the price of solar power components has been declining at 15% year over year, and states are leveraging this trend. India’s commitments on increasing its non-fossil fuel component of power generation to 40% by 2030 are substantial. Even though coal […]

Paris Summit 2015 – Each country’s pledge

Carbon Brief has been following each country’s pledge towards the Paris 2015 summit. Here on this post you will find more details on how each country pledged in the upcoming summit. While for some countries, the pledges seem a big task however it will be interesting to see if they manage to achieve the target. […]

Plastic bag’s usage has been reduced but still a long way to go!

Over the few months I have been stressing a lot in my posts regarding the use of plastic bag in our daily life. Why I say ‘the use of daily life’? Each year, an estimated 500 billion to 1 trillion plastic bags are consumed worldwide. That’s over one million plastic bags used per minute. Recently, […]

World Energy Outlook Report 2015

This September the International Energy Agency published a Special Report on Energy and Climate Change. This December a very important meeting, the COP21, will let come together the most important decision takers in the field of Sustainability. In fact this sustainable innovation forum that will be happening partnership with the UNEP, the United Nation Environment Programme […]

Consolidating Climate Change within Asset Management

Asset management is a systematic process of deploying, operating, maintaining, upgrading, and disposing of assets cost-effectively. The term is most commonly used in the financial world to describe people and companies that manage investments on behalf of others. This is the definition taken from Wikipedia. It’s very clear. I have nothing against it. However, recently […]

World Air Quality Index

Couple of hours ago, I saw this really interesting website where you can find the pollution levels city by city just by one click. This site give you a world map with numbers on it and on the top you can find the bracket or category where the pollution limit is mentioned. My city has […]

Australia: The first country to have Tesla’s power battery

Tesla’s new ‘Powerwall’ battery which can save excess energy which can be used to later on will hit the markets of Australia late this year. It is being launched well before the predictions in early 2016. Even if those who have already installed the solar panels for them it should be a great news. The […]

White certificates: What are they and what are they good for?

In our RESD course we hear a lot about environmental policies and how they get applied in the real world. One of them are white certificates. The main aim of this kind of certificates is to lower the energy consumption by installing a market to trade them relatively freely and doing so to achieve a […]

Sustainer Homes

As you may noticed, Pushkar and me we are reporting quite often about pilot projects and plans on how to apply new knowledge on sustainability in the real world. Today I would like to present you another project; the dream of everyone studying and working in the field of sustainability: Sustainer Homes, a house created […]

Carbon bubble threat from climate change!

A carbon bubble is the idea that there is a bubble in valuation of companies related to fossil-fuel-based energy production. This is because true costs of carbon dioxide in intensifying global warming are not taken into account in a company’s stock market valuation. Currently the price of fossil fuels companies shares is calculated under the […]

Wind Hybrid Power System

Few days ago my colleague and a friend Max wrote a piece about Wind to hydrogen possibility. It was an interesting article. It got me thinking about other possibility so in this post, I am going to write some different ways of creating energy and storing through Wind/Solar. Hybrid power describes the combination of a […]

Wind-to-Hydrogen: A possible solution to store energy?

If you follow our blog than you might know that one of the topics we discuss most is how to create energy in a sustainable way and how we can store that energy. When electricity gets produced it has one big disadvantage: it has to be consumed when it gets produced. It is very difficult […]

Some ‘Green Startup’ enjoying success!

In order to more sustainable or at least to help us become more sustainable, we need entrepreneurs who are willing to put their dime in startups which focus sustainability or Eco-friendly. Currently the name give to it is Green Startup. It is a tricky startup since I personally feel that it is very new and […]

Mad Max (film) like situation : Water Scarcity!

Some of you might have seen the classic Mel Gibson’s Max Max or you might have seen the latest Tom Hardy’s Max Max: Fury Road. More or less the plot remains the same – Shortage of Water. I am not going to review this film. I am not the great Robert Edgar, however, I would […]

Mobility revolution: Dublin

Dublin the Capital of Ireland is soon to be one of the cities with the widest pedestrian zones all over the world. But it doesn’t finish here, they invested also more than 150 billion euros in  the city center to improve public transportation with tram and a well functioning wide range net of bicycle roads. The […]

What is fossil fuel divestment?

Divestment serves to de-legitimise the business models of companies that are using investors’ money to search for yet more coal, oil and gas that can’t safely be burned. It is a small but crucial step in the economic transition away from a global economy run on fossil fuels. It is one way of reducing the […]

‘The 11th hour’ Documentary review!

I once wrote a post about the top 10 documentaries on Sustainability. I am going to write a review on one of those documentaries today. The 11th hour The 11th Hour is a 2007 documentary film, created, produced and narrated by Leonardo DiCaprio, on the state of the natural environment. Global warming, deforestation, mass species […]

Food Waste Petition – Do you part now!

In continuance of a post about Dumpster diving last week, I would like mention about France’s supermarket waste law. I’m sure you all are aware that France has banned supermarket to throw away the unsold food. Instead they now need to give it away to food charities or to the homeless people. If they do […]

Sustainable Development of Societies – “Collapse – by Jared Diamond”

In the last weeks I focused a little bit more on energy and waste issues, but today I’d like to write something about development. As you know the RESD (Resource economics and Sustainable Development) Course that promotes this blog is also giving a good understanding on how development can be sustainable. And one of the most […]

Dumpster Diving – Written by Philipp Mitterhofer

I’m Philipp and I study Geography at the University of Copenhagen. In my studies and in my personal life I am very interested in sustainability. What interests me the most is the complexity of the many issues we face today. Food waste is one of these issues where many factors play a role and that […]

Top 10 Sustainable Cities!

Last time I wrote about documentaries on Sustainability. Today I am writing about which cities are considered to be more sustainable. The three sub-indices each city was measured on can be further broken down into the following indicators: 1) Profit – business performance, transport infrastructure, ease of doing business, the city’s importance in global economic […]

My Top 10 documentaries about Sustainability

In these summer holidays where I should be little bit focused on Maths ( I have one exam left in Sept.) all I do is watch Vikings. It is quite a show. Must watch. Then I wondered that it’s been a while that I haven’t seen any documentary and to top that a friend of […]

New way of not wasting the food – Apps are online now!

Few days ago a friend of mine spoke about an app or in fact there is an fb page too or if I can continue this sentence with another platform in US where you can give away extra food to homeless people or to those who live in shelter, doesn’t that sound wonderful. Well, it […]

Gadgettime: The Fairphone – a cool sustainable product

No this is not a paid advertising (unfortunately ;), I´d simply like to introduce you to a very cool product: The Fairphone www.fairphone.com What makes this Smartphone different from classic ones? The answer is simple and yet complicated. From outside the phone looks like a normal Samsung, iPhone, or Nokia, but what makes it really […]

This ‘Golden Crop’ is not sustainable!

My last post on Palm Oil where I wrote the disadvantages of using Palm Oil has been making headlines again. Recently on BBC you might have read about deforestation in Indonesia and Malaysia. In total these two countries cover 80% of palm oil production. According to the article, most of the people came out of […]

Obama’s new climate change plan – Is it a ‘kitchen sink’ approach?

If you have been reading the latest news, you would have read about Obama’s new Climate Change Plan. What the plan actually means is the Clean Power Plan sets standards to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from 32% from 2005 levels by 2030, which is 9% more than proposed earlier. That’s drastic change in their policy. […]

Sustainable Design

Recently I was talkin with a friend of mine that studies Industrial Design in one of the most famous Universities in Europe in the field, the UDK in Berlin. And while we were talking he explaned to me a very interesting topic, the so clled sustainable or also environmental design. It is all about being […]

Current Environmental Problems

Even it is very clear from the image on how we all are getting effected by various environmental problems but let’s have a look together on some of those issues ( I can write long pages on that) but I will keep short and sweet in order for you to understand or at least give […]

Biogas, the underrated renewable energy source!

Renewable energy sources are becoming crucial for a sustainable energy supply in the next decades; the only way to reach more independency from fossil fuels is a good mix between all the different possibilities that we have as solar, wind, water, and geothermal power sources. But one source is quite often forgotten: Biogas from Anaerobic […]

Myths vs. Facts on Global Warming

This article might upset few people or maybe we might learn a thing or too. Before I go on about the Myths or facts bout global warming, I would like to make my stand clear. According to me Global Warming is indeed a real thing happening caused by us. More population, more consumption, more production […]

Some interesting facts, pros and cons of Solar Energy

In my previous article I wrote about Wind Energy. Today I would like to cite some facts about Solar Energy. Recently I read an article where a Swedish firm seeks to revolutionize solar energy production by creating a new solar electricity generation system that developers claim is the most efficient in the world. It is […]

How to finance SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

With all the Grexit and Iranian atom discussions you may missed some important news when it comes to sustainable development. This days the third international conference on financing for development is happening in Addis Abeba, the capital of Ethiopia. The people that meet there are ministers for foreign affairs and finances from all over the world, […]

Wind Power Usage – What’s not to like!

Recently I read an article where Denmark generated 140% of it’s electricity demand. If you must know, Denmark usually produced almost 40% of it’s electricity demand. But this time not only it managed to produce more but also managed to export it to the countries like Germany, Sweden & Norway. That got me wanting to […]

Bioenergy provides 38 per cent of jobs in the renewable energy industry

According to a report released by IRENA, there has been an 18 per cent increase from last year in the renewable energy industry, The bioenergy sector accounts for over 2.9 million jobs, including liquid biofuels (1.78 million), biomass power and heat (0.82 million) and biogas (0,38 million). This means that 38 per cent of all […]

Calculate your own ecological footprint!

Have you ever asked yourself how big your own ecological footprint is? Here you get a useful tool CoolClimate Calculator This calculator has been developed by the famous Berkely University from California. The aim of this calculator is to estimate the yearly co2 emissions of your household. In the first step you have to enter some […]

International Trade and Environment

Today I would like to reblog this amazingly well made Blog from our environmental economist colleagues from the IIT Madas. The contents you can find there are the basics you need to know if you want to succeed as an environmental economist student or profesionist. Just stumble trough the page, you will be stunned about […]

How to be more Sustainable in your daily routine

I once wrote about to conserve energy. Today I would like to cite few steps that we can take in order to be more sustainable as an individuals. So here we go: 1) Drink more filtered water than from plastic bottle – Recently I have been reading a lot about drinking from tap water or […]

Energiewende Part II – a new eco era

If you liked my article about the Energiewende two weeks ago, than you will definitely enjoy the second part about the energy transition that is going to happen in the next decades. In the first part I introduced you to the argument, and today I would like to sum up a very nice article published on the SPIEGEL […]

What is Fracking? It maybe more harmful that we think it is to be

Fracking is the process of drilling down into the earth before a high-pressure water mixture is directed at the rock to release the gas inside. Water, sand and chemicals are injected into the rock at high pressure which allows the gas to flow out to the head of the well. The process is carried out […]

World’s most polluted cities – 13 out of top 20 cities are in India.

Few months back I wrote on Delhi has become numero 1 as world’s most polluted city. However according to the lastest data by WHO not only Delhi tops the list but 12 other cities from India are on the top 20 most polluted cities in the world. Even for me that is really surprising. China […]

Are we eating Plastic for dinner?

Yesterday when I wrote about the dutch entrepreneur Boyan Slat’s Ocean Cleanup Project, I also mentioned that around 8 Million tons of plastic is dumped into Ocean every year. I just couldn’t take this out of mind. 8 Million tons every year. Every year. That is just too much to handle. BY 2025 it will […]

The Ocean Clean up Project!

When we started our Environmental Economics course, we had a seminar over waste management. The person who was conducting this seminar mentioned about a young guy from Holland who is trying to clean up the ocean. Soon after that this young guy named Boyan Slat was in the new for generating over 2 million dollars […]

Technology and Innovation as sustainability promoter

In the past decades we explored a fascinating trend regarding innovation and technology. In fact, technologic innovations changed our planet from the very beginning of humankind, and accelerated with an unbelievable speed in the last 100 years. In some cases technology helped to solve some critical environmental problems (e.g. substitutes for damaging CFC). In the next paragraphs […]

Mountains – so impressive but still vulnerable!

I grew up in the mountains. More specifically in the Dolomites, a quite famous mountain formation in the very north of Italy. And this is also the place where I feel most protected, nowhere else I can feel a bigger sensation of freedom than on the peak of my favorite mountain. Maybe you are from […]

To eat or not to eat = The Meat

Remember I once wrote my views on Cowspiracy and on how I took a pledge to decrease my intake. Well after 5 months, I would say it has reduced. Maybe it hasn’t reduced like I would prefer but I am happy with my progress. Just thinking that I might be saving few gallons of water […]

Thoughts on EuroEnviro by Maxsim Dimitrov

I am going to be honest, I had no major expectations about EuroEnviro. After all if the world-renown experts have not solved the problem, how can a group of 60ish students (even some workers and Ph.D. candidates) is going to unravel the Gordian knot? Turns out I have been looking on the issue from the […]

What the heck is an “Energiewende”?

Have you ever heard about Germany’s long term incentive to change their energy systems from non-sustainable energies to sustainable ones? No? Well this is process is called “Energiewende” which means Energy Transition in english, and the reason why I give you the german expression is because Germany is the most notable country when it comes to […]

Summer is here, let’s talk about Sustainable Tourism!

Summer is here, and exams are done! Let’s travel! (btw sorry for the two weeks of silence here on SteamGreen, I had to study a lot for finals). Yeah, when it comes to vacation usually we just want to relax, leave our ordinary lives behind and enjoy the free time without sorrows. But just take […]

Is Zero Waste a possibility?

Few weeks back I read an article. Here it talks about the zero waste in four different cities in different countries. These four cities include San Francisco, Sweden ( every city in it apparently), Buenos Aires and Capannori. Even though their effort should be appreciated and worth talking about, however, it concerns when when I […]

Thoughts on EuroEnviro 2015 by Mariantonietta Gagliardi

My schoolmate Pushkar, who is taking care of this blog with Max and with whom I shared the possibility to take part at the international environmental symposium I am going to talk about, asked me to write down a short overview of our Swedish experience. Well, if I have to talk about my impressions, feelings […]

Impression of EuroEnviro 2015 by Simona Colaizzi

Remember I once mentioned that 6 of us went to Göteborg, Sweden. So Simona shared her experience about it. It’s really interesting. Check it out.  We really appreciate and thank her for writing a post. It’s her second post here at Steamgreen. My impressions about EuroEnviro2015 EuroEnviro 2015 is a symposium where sixty students from all […]

RESD Students Study Tour to Sardinia

As you might know this Website is promoted by the two years M. Sc. Resource Economics and Sustainable Development, University of Bologna, and from time to time we report about activities of our course (like Pushkar did with Euroenviro last week). From 17th to 19th of May twenty RESD Students went to an amazing study tour […]

ThoughtBubble: Bottled fresh Air sold in China due to heavy air pollution

Have you heard about the chinese millionaire that sells canned fresh air? Believe it or not but according to more or less reliable sources the guy sold in one week more than 8 million (!) cans of fresh air as pollution levels reached record highs. Chen Guangbia, thats the guys name got rich in the […]

Energy Seeping Ignorance

Few weeks ago my friends and I were talking about electricity saving and I mentioned that my ex-flatmate used to leave this TV light on all the time. I mean he would switch off the TV but not completely off from the plug or his mobile charger was always plugged even though the phone wasn’t […]

Actors of Change – EuroEnviro (Part3)

Day 6th Arenas of Change Here now is the important thing. We were divided in 12 teams in three different Arenas. The Arenas were University, Business and Politics. These three arenas have a great potential to change the world we live in. It was about how University, Business and Politics can do something so that […]

Actors of Change – EuroEnviro2015 (Part2)

Day 4 – Changing the mindsets Day 4 was one of my favourite days of the program. It Included a workshop of Self Leadership, one workshop of ‘How to pitch’ and one documentary called ‘Invisible Revolutions’. Self Leadership workshop meant to create a self motivated leadership. The instructor spoke about reflection and initiative among other […]

Actors of Change – EuroEnviro2015 (Part 1)

Day1 So as promised here goes my day to day article about what happened in EuroEnviro, how it was organised and especially we all got together in this symposium. Let me tell you from the beginning that the event was absolute awesome. It was so awesome that it gave a new meaning to awesomeness. EuroEnviro […]

Klimaenergy Award 2015

The Klimaenergy Award is an award for best practices of italian municipalities in the field of energy efficiency, renewable energy and waste reduction in public space. There were three categories that have been decorated: cites with 20.000 inhabitants, centres from 20.000 to 150.000 persons, and larger areas with more than 150.000 inhabitants. A committee of […]

Expo 2015: How sustainable is the universal exposition?

The Expo 2015 in Milan is the most important event in Italy this year, and its slogan is “Feeding the Planet, Energy for Life”.  But what about sustainability on the Expo? Here a sum up of the Interview with the sustainability manager of the event, Gloria Zavatta, published on Ecodellecitta.it on April 28th 2015. Zavatta […]

ThoughtBubble: How to be more green…only for woman

A new week, a new ThoughtBubble! This time the Author is our colleague Simona! How to be more green…only for woman. When I started to attend this course I start to become more and more aware about some topics and also wondered how I could be more green in practical aspects. I used to be […]

Tesla revealed batteries for your home

For sure you heard about Tesla, the US American producer of the very successfully selling electric car Tesla Model S. And if you find their revolutionary approach in the car sector as interesting as I do, you will definitely appreciate the latest news from Tesla. On April 30, they announced at a press conference in […]

LifeGate, an italian network for environment and sustainability

Today I would like to share with you an italian website that defines itself with the slogan “people planet profit”: LifeGate.it! LifeGate is one of the biggest italian networks for environment, energies, and sustainability. On their website you can find a lot of information regarding the topics i mentioned above, it is always up-to-date and […]

Disadvantages of using Palm Oil

Studying in an International Course (It’s in English language in Italy so it’s kind of a big deal here) I have many class mates around the world. One of my good friends who is from Indonesia and has studied in my country too recently spoke to me about the Palm Oil. We were hanging out […]

What is emission trading and what is it good for? Part 1 of 2

Today I would like to write about an issue that is so wide that I decided to divide it in two parts: Emission Trading. As you might know (or not) there are some instruments that policy makers can use to reduce emissions of pollutant gases, especially impactful greenhouse gas emissions. Tradable emission permits are one […]

What is emissions trading and what is it good for? Part 2 of 2

Instruments that have the power to reduce pollution emissions are one of the topics we study in our course, and looking closer on certain issues it can get sometimes more technical to understand problems better. Emission trading was first developed as an economic theory to internalize damaging externalities like pollution, which means that negative effects on the […]

ThoughtBUBBLE: Planned obsolescence

Something that bothers me a lot ultimately is the huge amount of electronic waste that everyone of us generates. Me for example: in the last 10 years i had eight different mobile phones! Eight! I have to admit that I was not very careful with them and maybe one or two broke, but I’m pretty […]

The World counts – An interesting site about data and statistics

Recently which browsing through internet about the interesting facts and data about the climate change, I encountered this phenomenal site called ‘The World Count’. “The data used on The World Counts comes from a large number of organisations, research institutions, news services etc. Our aim is to use data from the world’s most reputable organisations. […]

Hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) are on the rise at an alarming rate

I read an article few days back and couldn’t stop pondering over it for few hours. Hydrofluorocarbons or known as (HFCs) are already on rise at 54% in UK. Since the beginning of the spring and soon the arrival of the summer, people in UK have already started using the air-conditioners. This gas is replacement […]

RESD’s student heading to Gotenburg, Sweden for a week for Environmental Symposium 2015

The EuroEnviro student symposium was created in 1995 in Born, Germany. Originally known as BiB, Born-in-Born, it was later to be renamed EuroEnviro. The aim was to exchange opinions with other students on environmental sciences and ecopolitical issues. Over the years the focus has expanded from mainly environmental issues to also include social and economic sustainability. […]

Documentary Review – ‘Just Eat It: A Food Waste Story’

Few days back I saw this amazing documentary called ‘Just Eat It: A Food Waste Story’. Why amazing? Because I really hate wasting food. Sometimes when I waste food ( could be because the food was overcooked till the colour black or I am really nervous). Yes, I am one of those whose appetite goes […]

Play the Sustainability Game online

Teaching people of any age is a crucial step for a more sustainable world. While stumbling across the Web I found this very nice flashgame for children up to 14 that tries to teach in an interactive way what sustainability is, how the extraction of resources affects the environment and what would be the best practice […]

Smart Cities – The Cities of the Future

The WHO stated in 2014 that 54% of global population is living in cities, and in the following 5 years they estimated an expected urban population growth of 1.84% per year. This trend makes it crucial to make cities less impactful on the environment, and one step to reach that goal could be the so […]

It’s time we Indians start taking the measure against the increasing pollution

I was born and grew up in Delhi. Honestly I remember one of my closest friend had severe asthma problems especially during the winters. In Delhi, in winters we have ‘Smog’. Smog is a kind of air pollution, originally named for the mixture of smoke and fog in the air. Classic smog results from large amounts […]

Green activist killing rate are getting higher

As i mentioned in one of my posts that more than 1000 environmentalists have been killed in Brazil for protesting against the Amazon deforestation. So recently i read an article on BBC ( the link is given below) about how many green activists are getting killed. It is very sad that people who are trying […]

The Nature of Cities – Documentary Review

How can we make the cities better than before, better workplaces, better schools… how can we immerse ourselves in nature everyday instead of thinking we have to get in SUV and drive 50 miles? There is no doubt that we need nature. It’s absolutely essential to daily life. We can find it in the cities […]

Noise pollution and its negative effects on the environment

Noise pollution is very often an underestimated problem, and in our modern world noise is a always present factor that influences quality of life. Environmental noise is usually defined as the summary of noise pollution from outside caused by transport, industrial and recreational activities, which can have a heavy impact on mental and physical health of […]

What is Corporate Social Responsibility about?

Today we started a new class that is mostly about Corporate Social Responsibility. If you never heard about it, don’t worry you don’t have to check it on Wikipedia, just continue reading! Corporate Social Responsibility, or short CSR is a form of corporate self-regulation integrated into a business model. That means that firms try to […]

Cowspiracy – A must watch!

So few days back i watched this documentary called ‘Cowspiracy’ upon a recommendation from a friend. Honestly i was little hesitant before watching this movie since it starts with a word ‘Cow’. Usually the first thing people say to me when they get to know that i am from India is ‘There are many cows […]

Climate sensitivity is unlikely to be less than 2C, say scientists

Every now and then whoever is interested in Clmate Change or if anyone is studying as part of their course, must have asked this question – Does the fact that surface temperatures are rising slower than in previous decades mean scientists have overestimated how sensitive the Earth’s climate is to greenhouse gases? The question is […]

Environmental pressures from European consumption and production

Two weeks ago the Eurpean Environment Agency EEA published a synthesis report about european environmental policy in general and its implementation in the next 5 years until 2020. The report is a reflection of the European environment in a global context as well as chapters summarising the state of, trends in, and prospects for the […]

A Map of World’s energy use

This is a very ineresting map of the energy use per capita divided by countries. Take a look at it! (click on it to zoom in) Source: http://burnanenergyjournal.com/how-much-energy-are-we-using/ How much energy are people using in your country? Take part in our survey below! [polldaddy poll=8752185]

Sustainability according to TheGuardian.com

“Lessons from history: why what we say about sustainability matters” That is the title of an interesting article published on TheGuardian.com last Tuesday, March 10th. It describes in a very interesting way how the terminology of the word sustainability became more and more used in a business context. What do you think about it? Check […]

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